(Closed) Gift giving stress with In laws

We just had the in-law family holiday dinner and I am feeling so guilty. We were given nice gifts – some remaining items off the registry, and then a few other smaller ticket but useful items. I left the gift shopping up to my husband – he has 3 weeks of vacation during the holidays and in general has much more free time than I do.

So we did do some of the gift shopping together. But he is a last minute person, and essentially left the majority of it today, and ended up going into our movie ticket stash (we buy the discount tix from Costco to use) because he did not have time to get gifts for 2 couples. So I felt uncomfortable during the gift exchange, feeling like it was just so obvious that “we” didn’t put a lot of effort or thoughtfulness into our gift giving. I didn’t even get to really wrap some of the gifts as I would have liked because by the time he came back with the gifts he had just picked up we were already running late for the family dinner.

I mentioned this to DH and he thinks what we gave was fine, but it just seems like it doesn’t measure up to what we got, like the movie tix were just cheap, and we can afford to do more. So I just feel embarassed, but there’s nothing we can do now. DH apologized for things ending up this way and he does feel bad that I think he’s not a good gifter.

I guess I just have to resign myself to putting the gift shopping on my list of to do’s in the future. Not to mention our holiday cards… he thankfully got the envelopes for “his side” addressed & stamped… but then just never got to the point of sending them out so I did it.

If I left gift shopping up to DH, no one would ever get anything. I either end up picking out and purchasing gifts for people, or having to remind him daily that he needs to buy a gift for so-and-so until he actually does it. I even have to remind him to buy ME gifts at Christmas, which honestly takes a lot of the fun out of it. :/

I’ve been on both side of this. Today, my family forgot about DH and me and got our future baby (3 months to go!) stuff, which was very much appreciated. The prices ranged all over the place from very expensive to pretty inexpensive. We gifted everyone somewhere in the middle range. I don’t expect people to spend x amount on us just because we spend a certian amount. Also, for my uncle-in-law my DH picked out the gift last minute and it was uber cheap and given unwrapped and I felt so awkward giving it. But, he was happy about it. Unless the person is ungrateful and entitled, everything is fine. And those spoiled people shouldn’t be given any gifts at all!

We’re pretty broke this year, so we couldn’t really get much. We really only exhange gifts with FFIL, his wife, and their kids, and they said that they had to cut back this year, too, so I thought it would be pretty even. We took over one wrapped gift for each (FFIL/FSMIL, little brother, little sister), and I felt awful when we got there and they had TONS of stuff wrapped for us. I did some DIY stuff, little stuff, and then we got FBIL a peacoat (since he wants to start dressing like FI…awwwww). They were really happy and loved everything, but ughhhhhhhhh I feel bad. 🙁

Thanks for your empathy. I remember telling myself last year that I should take it all over, but this year I was still hopeful that we could split the shopping work. One of your posts above gave me the idea – maybe next year I can just circle things in catalogs or write out specific items/stores for him pick up.

@iheartnerds: My husband is exactly the same way. When he’s gifting, I essentially pick out an item, go to the store or online and purchase it myself. He says he’s lived through years of seeing his dad pick the wrong thing for his mom, so this is his solution.